Stream

We normally do not put personal posts on this page, as they can be complicated matters and usually do not pertain to CyanogenMod news. That said, something is affecting us in a way it really hasn’t affected us before, and it’s hitting very close to home.

Within CyanogenMod, we have dozens of maintainers and hundreds of contributors; none of whom are paid employees. Yes, we get donations, but despite the jokes of yachts, helicopters, and private planes, it is really just enough to cover operating costs for servers and hosting. Occasionally, there is enough leftover in the team account to buy a device for a developer. What we are getting at here is that CyanogenMod is not rich.

There are, however, times where we wish that we were a full fledged company. It’d be nice if CM could pay for some full-time positions or help out team members when they are in need. Currently, we are experiencing a painful reminder of this limitation.

A member has had a pretty serious problem fall into his lap. +Ryan Scott (aka ChiefzReloaded), a device maintainer, has a rare infection known as Necrotizing Fasciitis. This infection is caused by bacteria that eats skin, fat, and other tissue; it is literally a flesh-eating disease. Ryan is going through the treatments that he needs to keep him alive, but unfortunately, that treatment quickly becomes very expensive to deal with, and it is no exception for Ryan. This disease has placed an incredible strain on him and his family, including his young children. The CyanogenMod team would love to be able to hand out a fistful of cash and help out as much as possible.

Love from the CommunitySome members of our community have started a few initiates to benefit Ryan and his family. As we are unable to help out financially, we would like to lend our support for these community initiatives, and help spread the word.

Note: I'm not an economist. I'm pulling these notions out of thin air. This is probably naively wrong.

As far as I can tell, I think that Greece cannot recover from its current public debt on its own. Greek bureaucracy is too costly in its inefficiency, Greek tax collection is ineffective, Greek entrepreneurship is too tiny to fuel any growth, and that's not going to let them shrink a debt that currently towers at 120% or 160% of their GDP.

I think that all the banks and governments that loaned money to Greece understand that they won't see all of their money back, not by a long shot, and by letting go bit by bit they are hoping to avoid a Greek default that'd amount to a total loss. Their goal is probably to land Greece in a stable position, with a public debt around 50% of the GDP, a balanced budget, out of a recession spiral. They've already written off a lot of the loans, but by refinancing them at lower rates and taking the loss on the interest they've maintained an illusion that the debt isn't shrinking, to keep pressure on Greece.

On the other hand Greece understands that they're critically dependent on foreign trade as their industry doesn't allow them to be self-sufficient, and the foreign trade that Greece depends on can only exist with reasonably financing terms. They know that defaulting would set Greece a deep depression, as they'd have a lot of difficulty importing what they need. They've got to accept the terms imposed by their lenders so that they can keep the goods rolling in.

I see it as a game of chicken: neither side has any interest in seeing Greece default entirely, which is why the lenders have accepted multiple rounds of refinancing already, and which is why Greece has accepted increasing constraints forced on them by the rest of Europe. Every time Greece gets close to running out of money, both sides get to the negotiating table and put pressure on one another to see which one blinks first. They've all become good at this, so they can get closer and closer to an apparent disaster without any intent to actually create such a disaster.

There's still a big question mark though: it's unclear how much the Greek economy will shrink before the situation stabilizes. The more lenders wait, the more the economy will shrink, and the less money they'll be able to recover in the end. The more Greece waits, the more their economy will shrink, the more they'll create poverty and unemployment among the Greek people.

Both sides have managed to work together well enough to avoid a worst-case scenario, and they'll probably continue doing so while keeping the world scared. Unfortunately, I feel that their strategy puts them in the second-worst-case scenario, where the crisis will drag on and on. Lenders need to let go a lot more of their losses, as Greece is unlikely to ever be able to repay their debt at the current level and all that a high debt achieves is a higher future debt. Greece needs to modernize their economy, they need to favor private companies that create growth, they need to develop foreign tourism more, and they need to shrink their government and tighten their tax collection until they can balance their budget.

Played through Diablo 3 a couple times last night. It was alright. Same old left click/right click action as the other two.

I was hoping they would add some synergy between the character classes (similar to Mass Effect). Ie, Wizards having spells to freeze enemies, and Barbarians having an attack to shatter frozen enemies and making them explode. But there seems to be no class synergy at all. It's basically just people playing essentially single player, together.

The voice acting is terrible, to the point of being humorous. Especially Cain and the witch doctor (who is stereotypically Jamaican sounding).

The new global auction house was a pleasant surprise, and there's apparently going to be a real money auction house too? I wonder if Blizzard gets the real money, and players just get paid out on some gold exchange rate.

Overall, the game is very underwhelming by today's standards. It was something that could/should have been released 6 years ago.﻿

I ordered the Buckaroo burger and it's probably the tastiest burger I've ever had.
We also had sweet fries and onion rings, which were great too.
Their habanero mayo sauce was mild at best though, with a spicy aftertaste, a bit of a let down, as a waiter told us it would be very spicy.
Service was fast, friendly and excellent overall.